United States v. Pan American World Airways, Inc., 18897.
| Citation | 299 F.2d 74 |
| Decision Date | 07 March 1962 |
| Docket Number | No. 18897.,18897. |
| Parties | UNITED STATES of America and Jeanette E. Gondeck, Intervenor, Appellants, v. PAN AMERICAN WORLD AIRWAYS INCORPORATED and The Travelers Insurance Company, Appellees. |
| Court | United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (5th Circuit) |
Arthur Roth, Lloyd G. Bates, Jr., Asst. U. S. Atty., Edward F. Boardman, U. S. Atty., Miami, Fla., for appellants.
Leo M. Alpert, Miami, Fla., for appellees.
Before JONES and BELL, Circuit Judges, and SIMPSON, District Judge.
The district court set aside an order of William M. O'Keeffe, Deputy Commissioner, Department of Labor, by which compensation was awarded to Jeanette E. Gondeck for the death of her husband, Frank J. Gondeck, pursuant to the provisions of the Defense Base Compensation Act, 42 U.S.C.A. § 1651 et seq. By this statute the employees under it were covered by the provisions of the Longshoremen's and Harbor Workers' Compensation Act, 33 U.S.C.A. § 901 et seq. The evidentiary facts are stipulated. The inferences drawn from the stipulated facts by the Deputy Commissioner and his findings are challenged.
Frank J. Gondeck, a Florida resident, was employed by Pan American World Airways in March, 1958, as a diesel generator operator at a defense base on San Salvador Island, British West Indies. His work required him to put in an eight-hour shift on the job after which he was off twenty-four hours. He was subject to call for emergencies when off duty. He lived at a dormitory on the Base. There was a recreation center on the Base known as the Reef Club. At Cockburn Town, about three miles from the Base, was a night club known as the Blue Marlin Club. Pan American operated a bus on a regular schedule for transporting its employees, without charge between the Base and the town. Pan American supplied a jeep for transporting the diesel operators to and from the several generating plants.
Gondeck went off duty at 4:00 o'clock on the afternoon of April 24, 1958. With seven or eight other employees he went to the Reef Club where they sat around drinking champagne, with time out for chow, until about 7:30 o'clock in the evening when Gondeck, in the company of James F. Norman, Fox F. Fry and R. M. Smith, took off in the jeep for town. They went to the Blue Marlin, a native club, where they stayed for about fifteen minutes, had a beer, and started back to the Base with Norman driving the jeep. The use of the jeep for personal missions of employees was forbidden by Pan American. Norman and Smith had been warned a few days earlier that the jeep was not to be used except for official business. It was not shown whether this was known by Gondeck. As the jeep approached the gate to the Base, it went out of control, skidded, and turned over. Smith was killed. Gondeck sustained brain injuries from which he died three days later. In his order making an award of compensation the Deputy Commissioner found, among other things, that Gondeck had completed his day's work and was, on the journey to Cockburn Town, seeking reasonable recreation and entertainment, that he was on call for emergency duty. An award was made to the widow for herself and the child of the decedent by the Deputy Commissioner against Pan American and Travelers Insurance Company, its compensation insurance carrier.
Pan American and the Travelers Insurance Company brought suit against the Deputy Commissioner to set aside the award and to enjoin its enforcement. The United States Attorney represented the Deputy Commissioner in the litigation. Jeanette E. Gondeck intervened. On September 15, 1960, (and here the dates begin to become important), the district court made and filed findings of fact and conclusions of law in which it was stated that there was no substantial evidence that Gondeck was engaged in the scope of his employment at the time of his injury or that his injury and subsequent death arose out of or in the course of his employment. It was concluded that the award should be set aside. On September 21, 1960, the Deputy Commissioner filed a motion to amend the findings and conclusions or for a new trial. On September 26, 1960, Mrs. Gondeck filed a similar motion. The court's judgment setting aside the award and enjoining its enforcement was dated November 7, 1960, and filed on the following day, November 8, 1960. On November 16, 1960, orders were entered denying the two motions. On January 13, 1961, the United States, which was never a party to the suit, filed a notice of appeal, not from the judgment, but from the order "denying Motion to Amend Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law and denying Motion for New Trial." On January 13, 1961 the intervenor filed a notice of appeal from the final judgment of November 8, 1960, and the order of November 16, 1960. The appellees have moved to dismiss the appeal of the United States on the ground that it was not and is not a party and has no right to appeal, that the order on the motion for which it attempts to appeal is not a final order, and that the appeal was not taken within the time permitted by the rules. The appellees also move to dismiss the appeal by the intervenor on the ground that her appeal was not taken within the prescribed time.
We think there must be a dismissal of what purports to be an appeal of the United States. It was not a party to the proceedings in the district court and would not have been a proper party had it sought to become one. The identity of the United States and of the Deputy Commissioner are separate. No notice of appeal was filed by the Deputy Commissioner although the United States Attorney filed in his name a statement of "points on appeal" and a designation of the record on appeal. These do not make an appellant out of either the United States or the Deputy Commissioner. These matters do not preclude the intervenor Jeanette E. Gondeck, from taking an appeal by the timely filing of a notice of appeal. Whether she has done so is one of the questions for our decision.
The appeal of the intervenor was, we conclude, taken within the prescribed time. The running of the time for taking an appeal is suspended until disposition is made of a timely motion to amend or make additional findings of fact. Rule 73(a) Fed.Rules Civ.Proc. 28 U.S.C.A. Where, as in the case here, the motion presented a substantial question and the motion is not disposed of, either expressly or by necessary implication, by the judgment, the rule is applicable although the motion was made before but not overruled until after the judgment. Phinney v. Houston Oil Field Material Co., 5th Cir., 1958, 252 F.2d 357; ...
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